Dilemma And Relief

This dissertation holds that city has replaced countryside to play the central role in modern China society since the middle of 1980s, especially after 1990s when China practiced the policy of market-oriented economy. For this reason, the literary works on city life have increased gradually since 1990s, and these works created all kinds of images of city women.These images of city women can be classified by the role's identity as: the white-collar ones, the ones at the bottom of society, the ones from countryside, and the ones at the edge. Another classification is by their attitudes toward life and modes of thinking: the conservative ones, the compromise ones, and the open ones.All the city women are facing the same predicaments of living and love. Facing them, they shift from depending on the men to relying on themselves and other sisters. More importantly, women come to realize the importance of self, and they shift from pursuing earnestly love to seeking enrichment of self, e.g. Zhuoer in Zuo Nue seeks manifestation and liberation of character. And this is the self-realization of woman.By the way, female writers and male writers seem to have different standards for city women. While female writers are adapting to and describing city, male writers are missing the past society more and more strongly. Male writers keep man and woman in two different evaluating systems, i.e. man could change to adapt to city, but woman should have to keep a traditional virtue in fashionable clothes.